social enterprise

This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news

A ban on local authorities selling renewable electricity to the National Grid is to be overturned, in a move the coalition government says will allow councils to lead 'a local power revolution’.

Energy secretary Chris Huhne told councils in a letter today that lifting the ban this month will offer them the full benefit of renewable incentives and ‘spur local power revolution and bring in income to benefit local areas’.

Local authorities are currently able to put any renewable electricity they generate to local use, and to benefit from the associated feed in tariff for projects smaller than 5MW. But they are restricted from selling any excess renewable electricity into the grid, other than that generated from combined heat and power.

Ending the ban on 18 August could mean up to £100m a year in income for councils across England and Wales, according to Mr Huhne, who blamed Whitehall’s ‘dogmatic reliance on “big” energy’ for obstructing ‘the vast potential role of local authorities in the UK’s green energy revolution’.

Commenting on the overturn of the 1989 amendment to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, he said: ‘This is a vital step to making community renewable projects commercially viable, to bring in long-term income to benefit local areas, and to secure local acceptance for low carbon energy projects.’

The Department for Energy and Climate Change is also working on proposals to allow communities that host renewable energy projects to keep the additional business rates generated, and plans to launch a web portal - Community Energy Online - in the autumn to support the development and deployment of low carbon community-scale energy infrastructure.